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“I wish you to have around you people who love easily and forgive quickly.”
Beloved Community,
This week I re-watched the movie “Invictus” about Nelson Mandela–--set after Mandela’s twenty-seven-year time in prison for opposing apartheid and having been accused of communism. In that film, Mandela is the president of South Africa and working toward a new beginning—in a country still strongly divided by hatred and mistrust. In the movie, we see very little of Mandela’s early struggles and the pain of his incarceration (just a brief look at his tiny jail cell), but what we do see is his largesse and his forgiveness of the culture that had destroyed so much of his personal life.
Even now I wonder….how did Mandela overcome his bitterness and forgive his captors to become a visionary leader and change agent? He explained that forgiveness was the way he “liberated his soul”. This amazing, pain-riddled man had to release resentment and practice generosity of spirit in order to forgive.
Forgiveness like Mandela’s is a choice, one that calls for conscious introspection and accepting that past situations cannot be changed. Religious Science teaches us that only our attitudes toward the past can be altered, not the past itself. When we contemplate the principle of Oneness, which is at the core of our teaching, we can begin to understand that we are not a victim, and that the perpetrator was not “evil”. I am not saying this is easy…far from it! But the act of forgiveness will change your life.
In Mahayana Buddhism, one’s enemy can be considered one’s best friend, a kind of Bodhisattva, or guide. This means that we are to see the gift in the situation and learn to deal with their behavior and our own behavior towards them as well. Golden Rules of many faiths and the Christian gospels abound in this kind of advice: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Judge not, that ye be not judged. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” And the master teacher, Jesus said in the famous parable of forgiveness: we are not to forgive seven times but seventy times seven.
That was the kind of forgiving that was required of Mandela. It did not require that he find reconciliation with his captors, though he did that as well. But it required only that he forgive them in order to step out and find freedom and happiness.
And that is the kind of forgiveness that is required of us if we want to be free and live the life we were brought here to live as perfect expressions of the Creator.
Forgiveness is serious business. It is life saving business. It is relationship and health and happiness saving business. We are here to support you on your Sacred Path of Forgiveness.
I look forward to being together with you in Community this Sunday!
Peace and Blessings!
Rev. Jackie Holland
Community Spiritual Leader
This Sunday we will conclude our discussion of “The Sacred Path of Forgiveness” as we explore The Four Phases of Forgiveness and participate in a beautiful and deeply meaningful ritual. This will be a special time together….
one you will not want to miss!

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